Lindy Hop
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Lindy Hop is an African American dance that evolved in New York City in 1927. It is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz, tap, breakaway and charleston. Lindy Hop co-evolved with jazz music and is a member of the swing dance family. It is frequently described as a jazz or street dance.
In its development, Lindy Hop combined elements of both solo and partner dancing by using the movements and improvisation of African dances along with the formal eight-count structure of European partner dances. This is most clearly illustrated in Lindy's basic step, the swingout. In this step's open position each dancer improvises alone; in its closed position men and women dance together — a practice usually forbidden in African dances.
Revived in the 1980s by American, Swedish, and British dancers, Lindy Hop dancers and organizations can now be found in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
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[edit] History
[edit] Swing era (1920s-1940s)
Born in African American communities in Harlem, New York in the United States from about 1927 into the early 1930s from four possible sources: the breakaway, the charleston, the Texas Tommy, and the hop.[1] Of these, only the breakaway and the charleston continue to be danced[citation needed], and the historical influence of the Texas Tommy and the hop is rarely cited and often disputed. The 'first generation' of Lindy Hop is popularly associated with dancers such as "Shorty" George Snowden, his partner: Big Bea, and Leroy Stretch Jones. "Shorty" George and Big Bea regularly won contests at the Savoy Ballroom. Their dancing accentuated the difference in size with Big Bea towering over Shorty.[2]
In 1935, "Shorty" George Snowden was unseated by a twenty year old dancer named Frankie Manning. Manning heralded a new generation of Lindy Hoppers, and is the most celebrated Lindy Hopper in history. Al Minns and Leon James, and Norma Miller also feature prominently in contemporary histories of Lindy Hop. Frankie Manning, working with his partner Freida Washington, invented the ground-breaking 'Air Step' or 'aerial' in 1935. An Air Step is a dance move in which at least one of the partners' two feet leave the ground in a dramatic, acrobatic style and most importantly it is done in time with the music. This type of move is now widely associated with the characterization of lindy hop, however, air steps have historically been reserved primarily for competition or performance dancing, and are generally not executed on any social dance floor.
The Lindy Hop is popularly thought to get its name from famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, nicknamed "Lucky Lindy" in 1926.[3] After Lindberg's solo non-stop flight from New York to Paris in which he "hopped" the Atlantic, Shorty George Snowden was dancing in a marathon contest at the Manhattan Casino in Harlem when a reporter asked him what dance he was doing. The headlines in the newspapers had stated "Lindy hops the Atlantic", so he told the reporter, "I'm doing the Lindy Hop."[4]
Lindy Hop entered mainstream American culture in the 1930s, popularised by touring dance troupes (including the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, which were also known as the Harlem Congaroos, Hot Chocolates and Big Apple Dancers), dance sequences in films (such as Hellzapoppin' and A Day at the Races) and dance studios (such as those of Arthur Murray and Irene and Vernon Castle). Lindy Hop's movement to the west coast of the United States is popularly associated with Dean Collins, who brought Lindy Hop to Los Angeles after (according to popular opinion) learning it at the Savoy Ballroom in New York.
Lindy Hop moved off-shore in the 1930s and 40s, again in films and news reels, but also with American troops stationed overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other allied nations. Despite their banned status in countries such as Germany, Lindy Hop and jazz were also popular in other European countries during this period.
Lindy Hop disappeared from popular culture in the 1950s as rock and roll music and dancing replaced jazz, and jazz itself moved towards hard bop and cool.
[edit] Revival (1980s and 1990s)
In the 1980s American and European dancers from California, New York, London, and Sweden (such as Sylvia Sykes, Erin Stevens, Steven Mitchell, Terry Monaghan and Warren Heyes who formed London's Jiving Lindy Hoppers performance troupe, and Stockholm's Rhythm Hot Shots / Harlem Hot Shots) went about 'reviving' Lindy Hop using archival films such as Hellzapoppin' and A Day at the Races and by contacting dancers such as Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Norma Miller, Jewel McGowan and Dean Collins. In the mid-to-late 1990s the popularity of neo swing music of the swing revival stimulated mainstream interest in the dance. The dance was propelled to wide visibility after it was featured in the popular 1993 movie Swing Kids, 1996 movie Swingers and 1998 television commercials for GAP. The popularity led to the founding of local Lindy Hop dance communities in many cities.
[edit] Today (2000 to present)
While the United States is home to the largest number of Lindy Hoppers in the world,[citation needed] there are thriving communities throughout Europe (including Slovenia, Russia, the Ukraine, Hungary, Estonia and other Eastern European countries, Belgium, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and Lithuania), in Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The small village of Herräng in Sweden (north of Stockholm) has unofficially become the international mecca of Lindy Hop thanks to the annual Herräng Dance Camp run by the Harlem Hot Shots, which celebrated its 25th year in 2007, and where Frankie Manning has taught every year since 1989.
Lindy Hop tends to be concentrated in small local scenes in different cities in each of these countries, although regional, national, and international dance events bring dancers from many of these scenes together. It is worth noting that the local swing dance communities in each city and country (for whom Lindy Hop is almost always the most important dance) feature different local cultures, though they do share common general traditions and practices.
Many Internet forums have emerged in these dance scenes. These message boards serve to provide information to dancers about Lindy Hop and dance events in the geographic area. Yehoodi has become the largest of these and now caters to an international audience, although many smaller local forums (such as Swingmonkey) also exist. Local swing dance related Internet forums often reflect the local variations in scenes' cultures and dancing. Because swing dancers travel to dance quite regularly, Internet forums are an important medium for communication between local scenes, and for dancers visiting a particular city or country.
Lindy Hop today is danced as a social dance, as a competitive dance, as a performance dance, and in classes and workshops. In each, partners may dance alone or together, with improvisation a central part of social dancing and many performance and competition pieces. Solo sequences in Lindy Hop are sometimes executed as part of a partner dance when one or both of the partner initiates a "breakaway" causing the partners to separate their connection and dance solo with each other using (if at all) visual lead and follow cues. These sequences may include charleston moves, traditional jazz dance moves (such as boogie steps, Shorty George, Suzie Q, etcetera) and contemporary jazz and modern dance movements.
[edit] Mass media
Lindy Hop has been featured in the mass media since its inception.
In the 1953 episode of I Love Lucy called "Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined", Lucy dances Lindy Hop with a "cool cat" dance partner in a showcase at Ricky's nightclub but can't do the dance properly due to the dilating eyedrops the eye doctor gave her.
Lindy Hop is featured in the music video for Marilyn Manson's Mobscene
Lindy Hop can be seen in the 2007 music video to Christina Aguilera's song Candyman.
The Lindy Hop was the dance Homer Simpson performed as a panda in The Simpsons episode 'Homer vs Dignity' season 12.
The Harlem Lindy Hop dance club and zoot suit culture forms a colourful backdrop in the early part of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington. Spike Lee's character is called "Shorty".
[edit] References
- ^ Stearns, Marshall and Jean (1968). Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York: Macmillan.
- ^ Lindy Hop Biographies: Shorty George Snowden. Judy Pritchett with Frankie Manning (2006). Retrieved on 2007-08-08.
- ^ Fad to Fundamental: Airmail in America: Pilot Stories: Charles Lindbergh. Smithsonian: National Postal Museum (2004). Retrieved on 2007-07-23. “Lindbergh got his nickname, Lucky Lindy, not from his successful transatlantic flight, but from his airmail service. ... While flying the mail on September 16, 1926, Lindbergh was forced to jump from his airplane during a blinding snow and rain storm after he had gotten lost in the darkness and his airplane ran out of fuel.”
- ^ Manning, Frankie; Cynthia R. Millman (2007). Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 79. ISBN 1-59213-563-3. “I [ Frankie Manning ] got this one from Shorty himself. He was a wonderful, humorous person, and I'm telling it just the way he told it to us: Shorty was dancing in a marathon contest at the Manhattan Casino in Harlem, up on 155th Street off Eighth Avenue. ... One night, this reporter came over to him and asked, 'Hey, Shorty, what's that dance you're doing?' Shorty told us that after Charles Lindberg had flown the Atlantic, the headlines in the paper read, 'Lindy hops the Atlantic,' so he said, 'I'm doing the Lindy hop.' As I've mentioned before, at that point, they were still doing the breakaway. You only separated a little from your partner, but it was this release that gave the dancers the opportunity to improvise on the footwork. That's what Shorty was playing around with when the reporter asked what he was doing. Shorty gave the breakaway a new name and—voilá!—the Lindy hop was born. We called Shorty Snowden the father of Lindy hop because he actually named the dance.”
[edit] Further reading
- Clark, Christopher. "Herman's Magic Socks: The History of the Magic Socks Dance Movement".
- DeFrantz, Thomas. Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.
- Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970. California: National Press Books, 1972.
- Friedland, LeeEllen. "Social Commentary in African-American Movement Performance." Human Action Signs in Cultural Context: The Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance. Ed. Brenda Farnell. London: Scarecrow Press, 1995. 136 - 57.
- Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance. Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
- Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina. Jookin': The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
- Jackson, Jonathan David. "Improvisation in African-American Vernacular Dancing." Dance Research Journal 33.2 (2001/2002): 40 - 53.
- Malone, Jacqui. Steppin' on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
- Manning, Frankie; Cynthia R. Millman (2007). Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-563-3.
- Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. 3rd ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.
- Szwed, John F., and Morton Marks. "The Afro-American Transformation of European Set Dances and Dance Suites." Dance Research Journal 20.1 (1988): 29 - 36.
- Thomas, Amy. "Infinity Dance: The Move That Never Ends". California: National Press Books, 2006
- Batchelor, Christian, This Thing Called Swing. Christian Batchelor Books, 1997,(ISBN 0-9530631-0-0)
[edit] See also
- Frankie Manning
- Swing dance
- Hollywood-style Lindy Hop
- Savoy-style Lindy Hop
- Lindy Exchange
- Jitterbug
- Yehoodi
- Hop
[edit] External links
- Savoystyle Archives of early Lindy Hop - resource for Lindy Hop history, sanctioned by Frankie Manning
- Dancehistory.orgresource for Jazz Dance history
